The age of the reformation

Preface

The excuse for writing another history of the Refprmation is the need for putting that movement in its proper relations to the economic and intellectual revolutions of the sixteenth century. The labor of love necessary for the accomplishment of this task has employed most of my leisure for the last six years and has been my companion through vicissitudes of sorrow and of joy. A large part of the pleasure derived from the task has come from association with friends who have generously put their time and thought at my disposal. First of all, Professor Charles H. Haskins, of Hansard, having read the whole in manuscript and in proof with care, has thus given me the unstinted benefit of his deep learning, and of his ripo and sane judgment. Next to him the book owes most to my kind friend, the Rev. Professor William Walker Rockwell, of Union Seminary, who has added to the many other favors he has done me a careful revision of Chapters I to VIII, Chapter XIV, and a part of Chapter IX. Though unknown to me personally, the Rev. Dr. Peter Guilday, of the Catholic University of Washington, consented, with gracious, characteristic urbanity, to read Chapters VI and VIII and a part of Chapter I. I am grateful to Professor N. S. B. Gras, of the University of Minnesota, for reading that part of the book directly concerned with economics (Chapter XI and a part of Chapter X) ; and to Professor Frederick A. Saunders, of Han'ard, for a like service in technical revision of the section on science in Chapter XII. While acknowledging with hearty thanks the priceless services of these eminent scholars, vi K1EFACE

it is only fair to relieve them of all responsibility for any rash statements that may have escaped their scrutiny, as well as for any conclusions from which they might dissent.

For information about manuscripts and rare books in Europe my thanks are due to my kind friends : Mr. P. S. Allen, Librarian of Merton College, Oxford, the so successful editor of Erasmuses Epistles; and Professor Carrington Lancaster, of Johns Hopkins University. To several libraries I owe much for the use of books. My friend, Professor Robert S. Fletcher, Librarian of Amlierst College, has often sent me volumes from that excellent store of books. My sister, Professor Winifred Smith, of Vassar College, has added to many loving services, this: that during my four years at Poughkeepsie, I was enabled to use the Vassar library. For her good offices, as well as for the kindness of the librarian. Miss Amy Reed, my thanks. My father, the Rev. Dr. Henry Preserved Smith, professor and librarian at Union Theological Seminary, has often sent me rare books from that library ; nor can I mention this, the least of his favors, without adding that I owe to him much both of the inspiration to follow and of the means to pursue a scholar's career. My thanks are also due to the libraries of Columbia and Cornell for the use of books. But the work could not easily have been done at all without the facilities offered by the Harvard Library. When I came to Cambridge to enjoy the riches of this storehouse, I found the great university not less hospitable to the stranger within her gates than she is prolific in great sons. After I was already deep in debt to the librarian, Mr. W. C. Lane, and to many of the professors, a short period in the service of Harvard, as lecturer in history, has made me feel that I am no longer a stranger, but that I can count myself, in

PREFACE vii

some sort, one of her citizens and foster sons, at least a dimidiatiis alumnus.

This book owes more to my wife than even she perhaps quite realizes. Not only has it been her study, since our marriage, to give me freedom for my work, but her literary advice, founded on her o^vn experience as writer and critic, has been of the highest value, and she has carefully read the proofs.

Preseeved Smith.

Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 16, 1920.

Contents

PAGE

Chapter I. The Old and the New 3

1. The World. Economic changes in the later ^liddle Ages. Rise of the bourgeoisie. Nationalism. Individualism. Inventions. Printing. E.vploration. Universities.

2. The Church. The papacy. The Councils of Constance and Basle. Savonarola.

3. Causes of the Reformation. Corruption of the church not a main cause. Condition of the church. Indulgencea.

Growth of a new type of lay piety. Clash of the new spirit with old ideals.

4. The Mystics. The German Theology. Tauler. The Imita-

tion of Christ.

5. The Pre-reformers. Waldenses. Occam. Wyclif. Huss.

6. Nationalizins; the churches. The P^cclesia Anglicana. The

Galilean Church. German church. The Gravamina.

7. The Humanists. Valla. Pico della Mirandola. Lef6vre

d'fitaples. Colet. Reuchlin. Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum. Hutten. Erasmus.

Chapter II. Germany 62

1. The Leader. Luther's early life. Justification by faith

only. The IsinetyfiTe The.'ies. The Leipzig Debate. Revolutionary Pamphlets of 1520.

2. The Revolution. Condition of Germany. Maximilian I.

Charles V. The bull Exsurge Domine burned by Luther. Luther at Worms and in the Wartburg. Turmoil of the radicals. The Revolt of the Knights. Efforts at Reform at the Diets of Nuremberg 1522-4. Tfie Peasants' Revolt : economic causes, propaganda, course of the war. suppression.

3. Formation of the Protestant Party. Defection of the radi-

cals: the Anabaptists. Defection of the intellectuals: Erasmus. The Sacramentarian Schism: Zwingli. Growth of the Lutheran party among the upper and middle classes. Luther's ecclesiastical polity. Accession of many Free Cities, of Ernestine Saxony, Hesse, Prussia. Balance of Power. The Recess of Spires 1529; the Protest.

4. Growth of Protestantism until the death of Luther. Diet

of Augsburg 1530: the Confession. Accessions to the Protestant cause. Religious negotiations. Luther's last years, death and character.

5. Relisrious War and Religious Peace. The Schmalkaldic

VVar. The Interim. The Peace of Augsburg 1555. Catholic reaction and Protestant schisms.

6. Note on Scandinavia, Poland and Hungary.

X CONTENTS

PAGE

Chapter III. Switzerland . . . . -.- . •. , 146

1. Zwingli. The Swiss Confederacy. Preparation for the

Reformation. Zwingli's early life. Eeformation at Zurich. Defeat of Cappel.

2. Calvin. Farel. Calvin's early life. The Institutes of the

Christian Religion. Reformation at Geneva. Theocracy. The Libertines. Servetus. Character and influence of Calvin.

Chapter IV. France 182

1. Renaissance and Reformation. Condition of France.

Francis I. War with Charles. The Christian Renaissance. Lutheranism. Defection of the humanists.

2. The Calvinist Party. Henry II. Expansion of France.

Growth and persecution of Calvinism.

3. The Wars of Religion. Catharine de' M^dicis. Massacre

of Vassy. The Huguenot rebellion. Massacre of St. Bartholomew. The League. Henry IV. Edict of Nantes. Failure of Protestantism to conquer France.

Chapter V. The Netherlands 234

1. The Lutheran Reform. The Burgundian State. Origins

of the Reformation. Persecution. The Anabaptists.

2. The Calvinist Revolt. National feeling against Spain.

Financial difficulties of Philip II. Egmont and William of Orange. The new bishoprics. The Compromise. The "Beggars." Alva's reign of terror. Requesens. Siege of Leyden. The Revolt of the North. Division of the Netherlands. Farnese. The Dutch Republic.

Chapter VI. England 277

1. Henry VIII and the National Church. Character of Henry

Vlil. Foreign policy. Wolsey. Early Lutheranism. Tyndale's New Testament. Tracts. Anticlerical feeling. Divorce of Catharine of Aragon. The Submission of the Clergy. The Reformation Parliament 1529-36. Act in Restraint of Appeals. Act of Succession. Act of Supremacy. Cranmer. Execution of More. Thomas Cromwell. Dissolution of the monastewes. Union of England and Wales. Alliance with the Schmalkaldic League. Articles of Faith. The Pilgrimage of Grace. Catholic reaction. War. Bankruptcy.

2. The Reformation under Edward VI. Somerset Regent.

Repeal of the treason and heresy laws. Rapid growth of Protestant opinion. The Book of Common Prayer. Social disorders. Conspiracy of Northumberland and Suffolk.

3. The Catholic reaction under Mary. Proclamation of Queen

Jane. Accession and policy of Mary. Repeal of Tveforming Acts. Revival of Treason Laws. The Protestant Martyrs.

CONTENTS xi

PAGE

4. The Elizabethan Settlement 1558-88. Policy of Elizabeth.

Respective numbers of Catholics and Protestants. Conversion of the masses. The Thirty-nine Articles. The Church of P^ngland. Underhand war with Spain. Rebellion of the Northern Earls. Execution of Mary Stuart. The Armada. The Puritans.

5. Ireland.

Chapter VII. Scotland 350

Backward condition of Scotland. Relations with Enfjland. Cardinal Beaton. John Knox. Battle of Pinkie. Knox in Scotland. The Common Band. Iconoclasm. Treaty of Edinburgh. The Religious Revolution. Confession of Faith. Queen Mary's crimes and deposition. Results of the Reformation.

Chapter VIII. The Counter-Reformation . . . 371

1. Italy. The pasran Renaissance; the Christian Renaissance.

Sporadic Lutheranism.

2. The Papacy 1521-90. The Sack of Rome. Reforms.

3. The Council of Trent. First Period (1545-7). Second

Period (1551-2). Third Period (1562-3). Results.

4. The Company of Jesus. New monastic orders. Loyola.

The Spiritual Exercises. Rapid growth and successes of the Jesuits. Their final failure.

5. The Inquisition and the Index. The medieval Inquisition.

The Spanish Inquisition, The Roman Inquisition. Censorship of the press. The Index of Prohibited Books.

Chapter IX. The Iberian Peninsula and the Expansion OF Europe 425

1. Spain. Unification of Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella.

Charles V. Revolts of the Communes and of the Hermandad. Constitution of Spain. The Spanish empire. Philip II. The war with the Moriscos. The Armada.

2. Exploration. Columbus. Conquest of Mexico and of Peru.

Circumnavigation of the globe. Portuguese exploration to the East. Brazil. Decadence of Portugal. Russia. The Turks.

Chapter X. Social Conditions 451

2. Wealth and Prices. Increase of wealth in modern times.

Prices and wages in the Sixteenth Century. Value of money. Trend of prices.

3. Social Institutions. The monarchy, the Coimcil of state,

the Parliament. Public finance. Maintenance of Order. Sumptuary laws and "blue laws." The army. The navy.

4. Private life and manners. The nobility, the professions;

the clergy. The city, the house, dress, food, drink. Sports. Manners. Morals. Position of Women. Health.

xii CONTENTS

PAGE

Chapter XI. The Capitalistic Revolution . . . 515

1. The Rise of the Power of Money. Rise of capitalism.

Banking. Mining. Commerce. Manufacture. Agriculture.

2. The Rise of the Money Power. Ascendancy of the bour-

geoisie over the nobility, clergy, and proletariat. Class wars. Regulation of Labor. Pauperism.

Chapter XII. Main Currents op Thought . . . 563

1. Biblical and classical scholarship. Greek and Hebrew

Bibles. Translations. The classics. The vernaculars.

2. History. Humanistic history and church history.

3. Political theory. The state as power: Machiavelli. Con-

stitutional liberty: Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, Hotman, Mornay, Bodin, Buchanan. R:idicals: the Utopia.

4. Science. Inductive method. Mathematics. Zoiilogj'.

Anatomy. Physics. Geography. Astronomy; Copernicus. Reform of the calendar.

5. Philosophy. The Catholic and Protestant thinkers. Skep-

tics. Effect of the Copemican theory: Bruno.

Chapter XIII. The Temper of the Times .... 641

L Tolerance and Intolerance. Effect of the Renaissance and Reformation.

2. Witchcraft. Causes of the mania. Protests against it.

3. Education. Schools. Effect of the Reformation. Univer-

sities.

4. Art. The ideals expressed. Painting. Architecture.

Music. Effect of the Reformation and Counter-reformation.

5. Reading. Number of books. Typical themes. Greatness

of the Sixteenth Century.

Chapter XIV. The Reformation Interpreted . . 699

1. The Religious and Political Interpretations. Burnet, Bos-

suet, Sleidan, Sarpi.

2. The Rationalist Critique. Montesquieu, Voltaire, Robert-

son, Hume, Gibbon, (Joethe, Lessing.

3. The Liberal-Romantic Appreciation. Heine, Michelet,

Froude, Hegel, Ranke, Buckle.

4. The Economic and Evolutionary Interpretations. Marx,

Lamprecht, Berger, Weber, Nietzsche, Troeltsch, Santayana, Harnack, Beard, Janssen, Pastor, Acton.

THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION

Chapter I The Old And The New

Though in some sense every age is one of transition and over}' generation sees the world remodelled, there sometimes comes a change so startling and profound that it seems like the beginning of a new season in the world's great year. The snows of winter melt for weeks, the cold winds blow and the cool rains fall, and we see no change until, almost within a few days, the leaves and blossoms put forth their verdure, and the spring has come.

Such a change in man's environment and habits as the world has rarely seen, took place in the generation that reached early manhood in the year 1500. In thespan of a single life — for convenience let us take that ' of Luther for our measure — men discovered, not in metaphor but in sober fact, a new heaven and a new earth. In those days masses of men began to read many books, multiplied by the new art of j^rinting. In those days immortal artists shot the world through with a matchless radiance of color and of meaning. In those days Vasco da Gama and Columbus and Magellan opened the watery ways to new lands beyond the seven seas. In those days Copernicus established the momentous truth that the earth was but a tiny planet spinning around a vastly greater sun. In those days was in large part accomplished the economic shift from medieval gild to modern production by capital and wages. In those days wealth was piled up in the coffers of the merchants, and a new power was

1483-1546

Antecedents of the Reformation

Economic given to the life of the individual, of the nation, and of the third estate. In those days the monarchy of the Eoman church was broken, and large portions of her dominions seceded to form new organizations, governed by other powers and animated by a different spirit.

Other generations have seen one revolution take place at a time, the sixteenth century saw three, the Eise of Capitalism, the end of the Renaissance, and the beginning of the Reformation. All three, interacting, modifying each other, conflicting as they sometimes did, were equally the consequences, in different fields, of antecedent changes in man's circumstances. All life is an adaptation to environment; and thus from every alteration in the conditions in which man lives, usually made by his discovery of new resources or of hitherto unknown natural laws, a change in his habits of life must flow. ^ Every revolution is but an adjustment to a fresh situation, intellectual or material, or both. ."-^

Certainly, economic and psychological factors were alike operative in producing the three revolutions. The most general economic force was the change from ''natural economy" to ''money economy," i. e. from a society in which payments were made chiefly by exchange of goods, and by services, to one in v/hich money was both the agent of exchange and standard of value. In the Middle Ages production had been largely co-operative; the land belonged to the village and w^as apportioned out to each husbandman to till, or to all in common for pasture. Manufacture and commerce were organized by the gild — a society of equals, with the same course of labor and the same reward for each, and with no distinction save that founded on seniority— apprentice, workman, master-workman. But in the later Middle Ages, and more rapidly at their close, this system broke down under the necessity for larger capital in production and the possibility of supplying it by the increase of wealth and of banking technique that made possible investment, rapid turn-over of capital, and corporate partnership. The increase of wealth and the changed mode of its production has been in large part the cause of three developments which in their turn became causes of revolution: the rise of the bourgeoisie, of nationalism, and of individualism.

Just as the nobles wore wearing away in civil strife < The and were seeing their castles shot to pieces by cannon, """"s^*^"® just as the clergy were wasting in supine indolence and were riddled by the mockery of humanists, there arose a new class, eager and able to take the helm of civilization, the moneyed men of city and of trade. Nouveaux riches as they were, they had an appetite for pleasure and for ostentation unsurpassed by any, a love for the world and an impatience of the meek and lowly church, with her ideal of poverty and of chastity. In their luxurious and leisured homes they sheltered the arts that made life richer and the philosophy, or religion, that gave them a good conscience in the work they loved. Both Renaissance and Reformation were dwellers in the cities and in the marts of commerce.

It was partly the rise of the third estate, but partly National also cultural factors, such as the perfecting of the modern tongues, that made the national state one of the characteristic products of modem times. Commerce needs order and strong government; the men who paid the piper called the tune; police and professional soldiery made the state, once so racked by feudal wars, peaceful at home and dreaded abroad. If the consequence of this was an increase in royal power, the kings were among those who had greatness thrust upon them, rather than achieving it for themselves.

ualism

They were but the symbols of the new, proudly conscious nation, and the police commissioners of the large bankers and traders.

Individ- The rcactiou of nascent capitalism on the individual

was no less marked than on state and society, though it was not the only cause of the new sense of personal worth. Just as the problems of science and of art became most alluring, the man with sufficient leisure and resource to solve them was developed by economic forces. In the Middle Ages men had been less enterprising and less self-conscious. Their thought was not of themselves as individuals so much as of their membership in groups. The peoples were divided into well-marked estates, or classes ; industry was co-operative; even the great art of the cathedrals was rather gild-craft than the expression of a single genius ; even learning was the joint property of universities, not the private accumulation of the lone scholar. But with every expansion of the ego either through the acquisition of wealth or of learning or of pride in great exploits, came a rising self-consciousness and self-confidence, and this was the essence of the individualism so often noted as one of the contrasts between modem and medieval times. The child, the savage, and to a large extent the undisciplined mind in all periods of life and of history, is conscious only of object; the trained and leisured intellect discovers, literally by ''reflection," the subjective. He is then no longer content to be anything less than himself, or to be lost in anything greater.

Just as men were beginning again to glory in their own powers came a series of discoveries that totally transformed the world they lived in. So vast a change is made in human thought and habit by some apparently trivial technical inventions that it sometimes seems as if the race were like a child that had boarded a locomotive and half accidentally started it, but could neither guide nor stop it. Civilization was bom with the great inventions of fire, tools, the domestication of Inventions animals, writing, and navigation, all of them, together with important astronomical discoveries, made prior to the beginnings of recorded history. On this capital mankind traded for some millenniums, for neither classic times nor the Dark Ages added much to the practical sciences. But, beginning with the thirteenth century, discovery followed discovery, each more important in its consequences than its last. One of the first steps was perhaps the recovery of lost ground by ^ the restoration of the classics. Gothic art and the vernacular literatures testify to the intellectual activity of the time, but they did not create the new elements of life that were brought into being by the inventors.

What a difference in private life was made by the introduction of chimneys and glass windows, for glass, though known to antiquity, was not commonly applied to the openings that, as the etymology of the English word implies, let in the wind! By the fifteenth century the power of lenses to magnify and refract had been utilized, as mirrors, then as spectacles, to be followed two centuries later by telescopes and microscopes. Useful chemicals were now first applied to various manufacturing processes, such as the tinning of iron. The compass, with its weird power of pointing north, guided the mariner on uncharted seas. The obscure inventor of gunpowder revolutionized the art of war more than all the famous conquerors had done, and the polity of states more than any of the renowned legislators of antiquity. The equally obscure inventor of mechanical clocks — a great improvement on the older sand-glasses, water-glasses, and candles — made possible a new precision and regularity of daily life, an untold economy of time and effort. Printing But all other inventions yield to that of printing, the

glory of John Gutenberg of Mayence, one of those poor and in their own times obscure geniuses who carry out to fulfilment a great idea at much sacrifice to themselves. The demand for books had been on the increase for a long time, and every effort was made to reproduce them as rapidly and cheaply as possible by the hand of expert copyists, but the applications of this method produced slight result. The introduction of paper, in place of the older vellum or parchment, furnished one of the indispensable pre-roquisites to the multiplication of cheap volumes. In the early fifteenth century, the art of the wood-cutter and engraver had advanced sufficiently to allow some books to be printed in this manner, i. e. from carved blocks. This was usually, or at first, done only with books in which a small amount of text went with a large amount of illustration. There are extant, for example, six editions of the Biblia Pauperum, stamped by this method. It was afterwards applied, chiefly in Holland, to a few other books for which there was a large demand, the Latin grammar of Donatus, for example, and a guide-book to Rome known as the Mirabilia Urbis Romae. But at best this method was extremely unsatisfactory ; the blocks soon wore out, the text was blurred and difficult to read, the initial expense was large.

The essential feature of Gutenberg's invention was therefore not, as the name implies, printing, or impression, but typography, or the use of tj]ye. The printer ♦ first had a letter cut in hard metal, this was called the

punch; with it he stamped a mould known as the matrix in which he was able to found a large number of exactly identical tyj)es of metal, usually of lead. These, set side by side in a case, for the first time made it possible satisfactorily to print at reasonable cost a large number of copies of the same text, and, when that was done, the types could be taken apart and used for another work.

The earliest surviving specimen of printing — not counting a few undated letters of indulgence — is a fragment on the last judgment completed at Mayence before 1447. In 1450 Gutenberg made a partnership with the rich goldsmith John Fust, and from their press issued, within the next five years, the famous Bible with 42 lines to a page, and a Donatus (Latin grammar) of 32 lines. The printer of the Bible with 36 lines to a page, that is the next oldest surviving monument, was apparently a helper of Gutenberg, who set up an independent press in 1454. Legible, cleancut, comparatively cheap, these books demonstrated once for all the success of the new art, even though, for illuminated initials, they were still dependent on the hand of the scribe.

In those days before patents the new invention Books and spread with wonderful rapidity, reaching Italy in 1465, l^**^"^g Paris in 1470, London in 1480, Stockholm in 1482, Constantinople in 1487, Lisbon in 1490, and Madrid in 1499. Only a few backward countries of Europe remained without a press. By the year 1500 the names of more than one thousand printers are known, and the titles of about 30,000 printed works. Assuming that the editions were small, averaging 300 copies, there would have been in Europe by 1500 about 9,000,000 books, as against the few score thousand manusciipts that lately had held all the precious lore of time. In a few years the price of books sank to one-eighth of what it had been before. "The gentle reader" had started on his career.

The importance of printing cannot be over-estimated. There are few events like it in the history of the world. The whole gigantic swing of modern democracy and of the scientific spirit was released by it. The veil of the temple of religion and of knowledge was rent in twain, and the arcana of the priest and clerk exposed to the gaze of the people. The reading public became .-'the supreme court before whom, from this time, all cases must be argued. The conflict of opinions and parties, of privilege and freedom, of science and obscurantism, was transferred from the secret chamber of a small, privileged, professional, and sacerdotal coterie to the arena of the reading public. Exploration It is amazing, but true, that within fifty years after this exploit, mankind should have achieved another like unto it in a widely different sphere. The horror of the sea was on the ancient world ; a heart of oak and triple bronze was needed to venture on the ocean, and its annihilation was one of the blessings of the new earth promised by the Apocalypse. All through the centuries Europe remained sea-locked, until the bold Portuguese mariners venturing ever further and further south along the coast of Africa, finally doubled the Cape of Good Hope — a feat first performed by Bartholomew Diaz in 1486, though it was not until 1498 that Vasco da Gama reached India by this method.

Still unconquered lay the stormy and terrible Atlantic,

Where, beyond the extreme sea-wall, and between the remote

_^ sea-gates.

Waste water washes, and tall ships founder, and deep death waits.

But the ark of Europe found her dove — as the name Columbus signifies — to fly over the wild, western ties waves, and bring her news of strange countries. The effect of these discoveries, enoiTnously and increasingly important from the material standpoint, was first felt in the widening of the imagination. Camoens wrote the epic of Da Gama, More placed his Utopia in America, and Montaigne speculated on the curious customs of the redskins. Ariosto wrote of the wonders of the new world in his poem, and Luther occasionally alluded to them in his sermons.

If printing opened the broad road to popular edu- Universication, other and more formal means to the same end were not neglected. One of the great innovations of the Middle Ages was the university. These permanent corporations, dedicated to the advancement of learning and the instruction of youth, first arose, early in the twelfth century, at Salerno, at Bologna and at Paris. As off-shoots of these, or in imitation of them, many similar institutions sprang up in every land of western Europe. The last half of the fifteenth century was especially rich in such foundations. In Germany, from 1450 to 1517, no less than nine new academies were started: Greifswald 1456, Freiburg in the Breisgau 1460, Basle 1460, Ingolstadt 1472, Treves 1473, Mayence 1477, Tiibingen 1477, Wittenberg 1502, and Frankfort on the Oder 1506. Though generally founded by papal charter, and maintaining a strong ecclesiastical flavor, these institutions were under the direction of the civil government.

In France three new universities opened their doors during the same period: Valence 1459, Nantes 1460, Bourges 1464. These were all placed under the general supervision of the local bishops. The great university of Paris was gradually changing its character. From the most cosmopolitan and international of bodies it was fast becoming strongly nationalist, and was the chief center of an Erastian Gallicanism. Its tremendous weight cast against the Reformation was doubtless a chief reason for the failure of that movement in France.

Spain instituted seven new universities at this time : Barcelona 1450, Saragossa 1474, Palma 1483, Siguenza 1489, Alcala 1499, Valencia 1500, and Seville 1504. Italy and England remained content with the academies they already had, but many of the smaller countries now started native universities. Thus Pressburg was founded in Hungary in 1465, Upsala in Sweden in 1477, Copenhagen in 1478, Glasgow in 1450, and Aberdeen in 1494. The number of students in each foundation fluctuated, but the total was steadily on the increase.

Naturally, the expansion of the higher education brought with it an increase in the number and excellence of the schools. Particularly notable is the work of the Brethren of the Common Life, who devoted themselves almost exclusively to teaching boys. Some of their schools, as Deventer, attained a reputation like that of Eton or Rugby today.

The spread of education was not only notable in itself, but had a more direct result in furnishing a shelter to new movements until they were strong enough to do without such support. It is significant that the Reformations of Wyclif , Huss, and Luther, all started in universities.

Growth of As the tide rolls in, the waves impress one more than intelligence l\^^^ flood beneath them. Behind, and far transcending, the particular causes of this and that development lies the operation of great biological laws, selecting a type for survival, transforming the mind and body of men slowly but surely. Whether due to the natural selection of circumstance, or to the inward urge of vital force, there seems to be no doubt that the average intellect, not of leading thinkers or of select groups, but of the European races as a whole, has been steadily gTOwing greater at every period during which it can be measured. Moreover, the monastic vow of chastity tended to sterilize and thus to eliminate the religiously-minded sort. Operating over a long period, and on both sexes, this cause of the growing secularization of the world, though it must not be exaggerated, cannot be overlooked.

Over against "the world," "the church." ... As the Eeformation was primarily a religious movement, some account of the church in the later Middle Ages must be given. \ How Christianity was immaculately ♦ conceived in the heart of the Galilean cai-penter and born with words of beauty and power such as no other man ever spoke ;\how it inherited from him its background of Jewish monotheism and Hebrew Scripture ; how it was enriched, or sophisticated, by Paul, who assimilated it to the current mysteries with their myth of a dying and rising god and of salvation by sacramental rite ; how it decked itself in the white robes of Greek philosophy and with many a gewgaw of ceremony and custom snatched from the flamen's vestry; how it created a pantheon of saints to take the place of the old polytheism; how it became first the chaplain and then the heir of the Roman Empire, building its church on the immovable rock of the Eternal City, asserting like her a dominion without bounds of space or time ; how it conquered and tamed the barbarians; — all this lies outside the scope of the present work to describe. But of its later fortunes some brief account must be given.